This Is A Step
by Cruelest Sea
Summary: Step by step, year by year, you grow up.


**_This Is A Step_**

_"You see, the bigger the heart, the bigger the risk. You bruise too easily. You bleed too abundantly. You scar too often. You love too recklessly."-jl, Safety_

I.

You're three when they float your father and you don't remember much, or so you tell yourself. The truth is the memories are faded and brittle but very much there, like a bad dream not quite forgotten. You feel the glass window against your small hand, the cold hollowness of the air as they close the doors to the chamber, and your mother's screams as she lets go of your sleeve and beats against the glass. There's a glimpse of your father's face hidden there, too, blue or brown eyes beneath hair as long as yours is now, and then his body is sucked backwards into space, gone in an instant, and you're half orphan and completely terrified.

This is death, you see, a suddenness, the cold, unforgiving breath of space, that leaves everything changed wherever it touches, like your mother, silent and motionless, unable to look her only child in the eye, much less raise you. But you're fine, you tell yourself, and you think you believe it.

II.

You're eight and you don't ask how old she is: Raven, they call her, with hair as black as the birds she's named for that you've seen in illustrations in some faded books. She's skinny and hungry, and as neglected as you, and something inside you glues to her and won't let go.

This is what it means to have somebody, to tease and look after, someone who doesn't vacantly stare or look at you as the son of a man who got floated. All you have is each other, and it's enough.

III.

You're ten when your mother finally dies. You took care of her, as best as you could when you were a little older, but she never recovered, never came back, only worsened, and her heart finally catches up to a mind that died years before. There's no one left but Raven, then, and she sits curled next to you, all skinny arms and legs no matter how much of your food you give her, and neither of you say anything for hours.

This is grief, it seems, unexpressed, silent, and hollow, and you never learn how to mourn properly, because you were too young when you lost your father, and too tired by the time your mother joined him.

IV.

You're fourteen and you're wild, never following anyone's rules, never answering to anyone, and everyone knows, just with a glance, that they'll float you, too, someday, that you have your "father's stupidity", but there's no pity, only a sense of relief, because there's no place on the Ark for someone like you, and the sooner it happens, the better.

This is what it means to be predestined, you learn, as the adults eye the children for potential careers, for useful places on the Ark, and pass you by. You don't care.

V.

You're sixteen when you steal the oxygen and take a space walk, and you can't even explain why you do it. You're not suicidal, for all your impulsiveness, but some part of you wants to understand, to taste what your father did, to feel so you can overcome the fear that chews at your insides. The chill of the air seeps even through the protective clothes to your bones, and you wonder if all death is cold, a gradual numbness that steals you away, or a rush of ice that tears the breath from your lungs. The stars are distant, balanced against the unending void of space, and your hand hovers in front of you, framing and trapping them there, imagining their feel between your fingertips, wondering if your father brushed against them as he died. It's beautiful, and everything you've ever dreamed, and you think it must be what it felt like back on earth, to be free, to be yourself.

You're careful, but reckless as always, and they catch you as you come back in, of course, and you're not old enough to float yet, but nearly. Raven's face is white, chin up, as she watches you go, but there's no shock or surprise, so you think that she always thought like the rest, too, always figured you would end up this way.

This is being one of the hundred, you'll find out later. A hundred under eighteen, thieves, murderers, and petty crimes, all, but you shake off the label, because you've always been a rebel, never been one to simply become a statistic or a number. You think.

VI.

You're seventeen and you're going to earth, and it's nothing like being floated, a year too early, but everything like freedom. You're bouncing off the walls the instant they seal you in, floating past the seats while almost everyone else sits buckled in and white-knuckled.

You see her, then, light-hair and a grim, slightly haughty glance, and she's a princess, like the storybooks the children read, beautiful like gold. Clarke Griffin, the daughter of a traitor and a traitor herself. You float in front of her, and you don't remember what you say, only that a few seconds later there's a jolt as you're flung over the seats, hitting the ground in a painful heap. You scramble to your knees the instant the floor steadies, and nearly fall over the two boys who followed you out of your seat.

You have your hand hovering over the mouth of one of the two, but you already know he's dead because his neck is twisted at an unnatural angle, and you feel sick and numb and ashamed. Clarke stares at you, and you only shake your head, in the moment before she pushes past you, shouting to keep the doors shut, trying to save the rest of their lives.

This is how you decide that she's a princess, and you're not a knight in shining armor, and never could be, but you can stand with her as she steps into the role of leader as if she's been born to it. You're not as hard as the others, more a dreamer than a fighter, you always have been, but you're ninety-eight and Bellamy now instead of a hundred and it's your fault and you have to atone for it somehow.

VII.

You're seventeen, and you've made a mistake, probably the worst on a long list, judging from the stunned pain in Clarke's eyes every time she looks at you and the betrayal in Raven's. There's no hatred and no bitterness, and you think that would have been easier, that a punch in the mouth or angry words would have done a little to ease the guilt. But there's no point in being petty, because relationships and broken hearts mean little when you're watching people dying.

This is what it means to break the spirit, because none of you smile as much as before, because you're not kids anymore, not after all the blood and death you've seen, and you remember that you used to be able to make both of them laugh, Raven when there wasn't enough to eat even if you gave her all of your food, and Clarke, no matter how tired and frustrated she was. You don't know how anymore, and you wonder if you ever did.

VIII.

You're seventeen and you've always been too trusting, too heedless, so it's no surprise when the knife slips up between your ribs with a sudden jolt of pain and a gasp of air from your lungs as you fall backwards, the blade still embedded in your body like some horrible grave marker. You hear voices and shouting, Octavia clinging to your arm and yelling your name, and then Bellamy heaves you up into his arms and everything turns to white.

You're dying, then, body in spasms with the tremors of whatever had been on the knife and is now dripping sluggishly through veins that seem to have forgotten how to carry oxygen to your lungs at all. You're choking, and everything is burning hot, unbearably warm within the fever, and nothing like the coolness of space, the exact opposite of being floated.

Clarke's voice drifts in and out of your mind, and she sounds terrified and helpless, further signs that you're every bit as close to death as you think you are. Raven's shouting somewhere but you can't make her out, not when you're flickering in and out and struggling to draw air into a body that refuses to cooperate.

Sometime later someone pours something into your mouth, but you're too weak to do more than swallow. Raven comes and goes, and Clarke stays, hands cool against your bare skin, fingers digging into the muscle of your shoulder with the softness of her hair across your chest. It's like being cradled by space, held as only the air had, because you were too young to remember when your mother was still capable of comfort, like it must feel the first second of being floated before the emptiness steals your breath. She anchors you in space, holding you firmly in place as you drift,and you tell yourself if you live you'll make it right, find a way to tell her that you love her, that you never meant to hurt her, as you hear her words.

This is how you learn that she still cares, that you, who isn't a fighter like Bellamy, or good with mechanics like Raven, matter, that in some way you help, because you're good with shoring up others, it seems, talented at making a princess smile when she doesn't feel like it, and good enough to catch her when she falls. You're eighteen and you're going to live. This time.

IX.

You're eighteen, and you've told her you're in love with her, and it's a horrible time to say it, with Grounders on your heels and fresh blood on your hands that all your scrubbing couldn't remove. She only looks at you, words quiet and filled with pain, and your hand slips out of hers where she tried to stop you from rubbing it to the bone. You don't say it again, and you think you probably never will, because if either of you make it, it will be her. You were never a hero, but you tried, and you think it should have counted for something, but it didn't.

This is what it means to get your heart broken, and deserve it.

X.

You're eighteen, and you're old enough to be floated on the Ark, old everything for nearly everything, it seems, but there's no time for any of it because it's the middle of a battle for your lives. Clarke is looking at you with horror on her face, and everyone is running forward as you turn back. She doesn't scream at you to follow, you wouldn't expect her to, because she understands you in many ways better than you understand yourself. You see her one last time, eyes haunted, but shadowed with acceptance, and you run, weapon in your hand, toward Bellamy, toward the Grounders.

This is earth, and you're free, and no one can tell you what not and what to do, and for the first time in your life, and perhaps the last one, you'll do something _right_.

You're eighteen and you make your own choice how you die.


End file.
